The catalogue — paintings in chronological order, each with a commentary.
149 works by the painter and workshop · 18 copies and works after · 60,658 words of commentary · Part 6 of 6 · 1896–1917
Works Wikidata records that no longer exist — the University ceiling paintings and others burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 — or whose attribution is uncertain. These are catalogued for completeness, from photographs and records.
Schubert at the Piano I (destroyed 1945): the first version of the beloved overdoor of Schubert at the keyboard by candlelight, made for the Palais Dumba; burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945, it survives only in photographs. One of the great losses of the œuvre, a tender evocation of the Biedermeier past.
Music II (destroyed 1945): the second version of the Music overdoor for the Palais Dumba, companion to Schubert at the Piano; burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945, surviving only in photographs. One of the losses of that fire.
Documented work · 8 language editions Q1393851 Wikipedia
Three large ceiling paintings — Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence — commissioned in 1894 for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna and delivered between 1900 and 1907; oil on canvas, each some 4.3 metres high. Burned by retreating SS troops at Schloss Immendorf in May 1945; they survive only in photographs and a few studies. — destroyed 1945.
The Faculty pictures are the great scandal and the great loss of Klimt's career. Commissioned to allegorise the triumph of light and reason in the several faculties, Klimt delivered instead a vision of humanity as driven, suffering, mortal and unredeemed by thought: Philosophy a drifting nebula of naked figures in a starry void; Medicine a river of tangled bodies with Death among them and Hygieia turning her back on suffering mankind; Jurisprudence an old man delivered to punishing furies. The professors petitioned against them; the public cried pornography and pessimism; Klimt, after years of battle, bought the pictures back and withdrew them, and never accepted a public commission again.
The University pictures are the hinge of Klimt's career — the works that drove him from the public sphere into the private world of the portrait, the landscape and the collector, and that confirmed the inward, erotic, pessimistic direction of his art. Their destruction in 1945, with so much of the Lederer collection, is the single greatest loss of his œuvre; the greatest of his allegories, the works over which he fought the establishment and remade his life, exist now only as black-and-white photographs. This entry records the series as a whole; the individual Medicine has its own entry.
In the surviving photographs: the drifting column of naked figures in Philosophy; the river of bodies and the gold Hygieia in Medicine; the tormented old man of Jurisprudence. Then the fact of the loss — the greatest of Klimt's allegories, burned, surviving only as ghosts.
The University ceiling paintings are the lost centre of Klimt's ambition — the vision of humanity unredeemed by reason that scandalised Vienna, drove him from public art, and was destroyed by the SS in 1945. They survive only in photographs, the greatest casualty of the catastrophe that consumed both Klimt's monumental work and the world of his patrons.
Documented work · 5 language editions Q103717707 Wikipedia
Oil on canvas — destroyed 1945 at Schloss Immendorf. One of two overdoor decorations Klimt painted for the music room of the Palais Dumba (the Schubert at the Piano and Music II), showing the composer Schubert at the keyboard by candlelight, surrounded by women singers, in a soft, atmospheric, tonal manner. It was one of Klimt's most beloved pictures in his lifetime — a tender, glowing evocation of Viennese Hausmusik and of the Biedermeier past — and its loss in the Immendorf fire of 1945, with the University pictures and so much else of the Lederer collection, is among the great losses of the œuvre. It survives only in photographs and a few studies. Placed here among the destroyed works.
From the Realm of Death (Aus dem Reiche des Todes): a lost or untraced allegorical picture of the golden years; recorded on Wikidata, its whereabouts unknown.
Documented work · 1 language edition Q11776859
One of the three University ceiling paintings; oil on canvas, some 4.3 metres high. A river of tangled naked bodies — the stream of life, with a skeleton Death among them — and, below, the gold-and-red goddess Hygieia, the serpent of Asclepius at her arm, turning her back on suffering humanity. Burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945; it survives in photographs and a colour study. — University of Vienna (destroyed 1945).
Medicine was the second of the Faculty pictures and, with Philosophy, the most scandalous. Instead of the triumph of the healing art, Klimt showed its impotence: a column of humanity — infants, lovers, the sick, the old — drifting in a river of bodies with Death woven among them, and a naked pregnant woman at its centre, while Hygieia, the goddess of health, stands below in gold and red and turns her back on the suffering she does not relieve. The professors and the public were outraged by the nudity and the pessimism, and the picture became a centre of the University scandal that drove Klimt from public art.
With Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine is the lost centre of Klimt's ambition, and its themes — the stream of life, Death among the living, the pregnant body, the impotence of reason before mortality — recur, transformed, in the surviving allegories: Hope, The Three Ages of Woman, Death and Life. The gold Hygieia is one of the first of the golden figures. Burned in 1945, the picture survives in photographs and a colour study, and its destruction is among the greatest losses of the œuvre.
In the surviving images: the river of tangled bodies; the skeleton Death among the living; the naked pregnant woman at the centre; the gold-and-red Hygieia turning her back on suffering mankind. Then the scandal, and the loss.
Medicine is one of the three lost University allegories — the healing art shown not as triumph but as impotence, a river of suffering bodies with Death among them and Hygieia turning her back. Scandalous in its day, burned in 1945, it survives only in photographs, one of the greatest casualties of the catastrophe; its themes live on in the surviving allegories of life and death.
Documented work · 1 language edition Q19912818 Wikipedia (fr)
A landscape of the town of Malcesine on Lake Garda — the houses rising in tiers from the water, dissolved into a dense, shimmering field of coloured facades, the sky reduced to a strip. One of the Garda landscapes of Klimt's 1913 summer; destroyed by fire at Schloss Immendorf in 1945. — destroyed 1945.
Malcesine on Lake Garda was, with the Church in Cassone, one of the landscapes of Klimt's summer of 1913 on the Italian lake — the town rising in tiers of coloured houses from the water, the whole dissolved into a shimmering mosaic in the characteristic manner, the architecture pressed flat against the plane. It was among the works stored at Schloss Immendorf and burned by retreating SS troops in 1945, one of the many casualties of that fire, and it survives only in photographs. Its loss is part of the wider destruction that consumed the Lederer collection and so much of Klimt's work.
The Garda landscapes, turning Klimt's method on the Italian lakeside town, are among the most colourful and architectural of his landscapes; that one of them was destroyed at Immendorf ties even the serene late landscapes to the catastrophe. Malcesine survives, like the University pictures and so much else, only in reproduction — a shimmering town on a lake, known now only as a photograph.
In the surviving photograph: the tiers of coloured houses rising from the water; the shimmering mosaic of facades; the flattened architecture. Then the loss — one more of the pictures burned at Immendorf in 1945.
Malcesine on Lake Garda was one of Klimt's landscapes of the 1913 Italian summer — the lakeside town dissolved into a shimmering mosaic of coloured houses — burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 and surviving only in photographs. Its loss ties even the serene late landscapes to the catastrophe that consumed so much of the œuvre.
Documented work · 1 language edition Q113909235
A landscape of a garden path with chickens, in a dense, shimmering field of foliage and flowers — one of Klimt's few garden pictures with animals. Destroyed by fire at Schloss Immendorf in 1945; it survives only in photographs. — destroyed 1945.
The Garden Path with Chickens (sometimes called a Schönbrunn landscape) was one of the rare Klimt landscapes to include living creatures — chickens on a garden path amid a dense field of flowers and foliage, in the shimmering all-over manner. It was among the works stored at Schloss Immendorf and burned by the retreating SS in 1945, one of the many casualties of that fire, and it survives only in photographs. Its loss is part of the wider destruction of the Lederer collection and of so much of Klimt's late work.
That a landscape as charming as the Garden Path with Chickens should have been destroyed is one of the smaller griefs within the great loss of the Immendorf fire; the picture, known now only from reproduction, is a reminder of how much of Klimt's landscape art perished with his figure paintings in 1945. The chickens make it a rarity — Klimt's landscapes are almost always unpeopled and animal-less — and its loss removes one of the few exceptions.
In the surviving photograph: the garden path; the chickens; the dense field of flowers and foliage. Then the loss — one more of the pictures burned at Immendorf in 1945, and one of the few with living creatures.
The Garden Path with Chickens was one of Klimt's rare landscapes with living creatures — chickens on a path amid a field of flowers — burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 and surviving only in photographs. Its loss is one of the smaller griefs within the great destruction of that fire.
The Fur Collar (Der Pelzkragen): a portrait of a woman in a fur collar, of the late years; recorded on Wikidata as untraced or of uncertain whereabouts.
Documented work · 2 language editions Q125457479 Wikipedia
Oil on canvas. A picture of two women — friends, or lovers — one nude, one in a brightly patterned robe, embracing or standing close, against a dense wall of East Asian ornament, in the hot late colour. Destroyed by fire at Schloss Immendorf in 1945; it survives in photographs and a colour reproduction. — destroyed 1945.
Women Friends showed two women together — one nude, one clothed in a brilliantly patterned robe, close and intimate against a wall of Asian figures and ornament — one of Klimt's images of female intimacy and, probably, of love between women, of the same family as the Water Serpents and the swirling allegories. It was among the finest of the late colour pictures, the hot ornament and the two figures making a rich, sensual surface. It was burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 with the University pictures and so much of the Lederer collection, and survives only in reproduction — one of the greatest losses among the late works.
The picture belonged to the theme of female intimacy that runs through Klimt's art from the Water Serpents to The Maiden and The Bride, and its frank treatment of two women together made it one of the boldest of the late pictures. Its destruction removes one of the fullest late statements of that theme; like Malcesine and the Garden Path with Chickens, it is known now only as a photograph, a casualty of the fire that consumed the Lederer holdings.
In the surviving reproduction: the nude and the robed woman close together; the wall of East Asian ornament; the hot colour; the female intimacy. Then the loss — one more of the finest late pictures burned in 1945.
Women Friends was one of the finest of Klimt's late colour pictures — two women, one nude, one robed, intimate against a wall of hot Asian ornament, a bold late statement of the theme of female intimacy. Burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945, it survives only in reproduction, one of the greatest losses among the late works.
Garden with Roosters (Bauerngarten mit Hühnern) (destroyed 1945): a flower-garden landscape with roosters; burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945, surviving only in reproduction — one of the losses of that fire, and one of the few Klimt landscapes with animals.
Works retrieved from Wikidata (creator P170 = Q34661, with image P18); dates from P571 where present, otherwise supplied from the literature; locations from P195/P276; materials P186; dimensions P2048/P2049. Tier labels reflect how many Wikipedia language editions carry an article on the work. Images from Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge, arrow keys to step. Fetched 2026-08-21.